From: michael seium (michael.seium@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Aug 27 2009 - 17:43:26 EDT
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=26312
*Ambassadorship, Anyone?**Written by Benjamin Joffe-Walt
Published Thursday, August 27, 2009*E-Mail
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They spend their lives living in places like Rome, Paris, Buenos Aires and
Beijing. They spend their days shaking hands and smiling, and their evenings
drinking wine with influential folk from all walks of life. They eat
regularly at the best restaurants a country has to offer... The life of an
ambassador - regular parties, good pay, superb benefits - is seductive to
many.
But Israeli diplomats seem to have found one exception to the rule: Eritrea.
Apparently the Jewish State has been struggling to find a diplomat willing
to serve as the country's ambassador to the East African nation for over a
year.
"It's not clear to me what's going on," Tesfamariam Tekeste, Eritrea's
ambassador to Israel, told The Media Line. "For the last one or two years
Israel has been without an ambassador. The Israelis are telling me they
can't find someone but I can't understand why."
Tekeste said that while the absence of an ambassador was not good for the
two countries' "cordial relationship", it was up to Israel how to proceed.
"We want to maintain our relationship and an ambassador will help, but this
is up to the Israeli government," the ambassador said. "If they want to
appoint someone they are welcome. If they want to close the embassy they are
welcome.
The ambassador said he had been offended by the depiction of Eritrea in an
Israeli newspaper's report on the vacancy.
"No food, no water, no electricity - it's rubbish what I read in the
newspaper," Tekeste said. "it's ridiculous these kinds of reports. The
reality is far from that."
Israeli Foreign Ministry officials said it was a challenge finding people
willing to serve in countries like Eritrea
"This is just a circumstantial thing," Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the
Israeli Foreign Ministry, told The Media Line. "It’s always difficult to
find people for hardship countries and Eritrea is a hardship country,
believe me. When you wake up every morning and you don't know if you'll have
electricity or water, that's a hardship country."
"It's not just about finding qualified candidates," Palmor stressed. "This
is not the army and you can't force an ambassadorship on anyone. Their
families need to agree and there are so many aspects that need to be taken
care of: provisions for your children's education, employment for the
spouse, etc."
Shlomo Aronson, professor of politics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
suggested the absence may be due to a lack of qualified personnel, not a
lack of diplomats interested in serving in Eritrea.
"The main job of an Israeli ambassador is talking to the people, not the
government," he told The Media Line. "You cannot count on too many people
who speak Swahili, or a local language in a country with 250 tribes and just
as many languages."
Aronson said the majority of appointments were based on professional
qualifications.
"The Foreign Minister, in this case Avigdor Lieberman, has the right to
appoint a few people to some positions, especially the ambassador to the
U.S., U.N., Germany, France and Great Britain," he said. "But the rest of
the ambassadorships are all staffed by career diplomats so the decisions are
to a large extent professional and depend on linguistic skills, experience
and availability."
Insiders say the time between an ambassador’s position being vacated to the
time the position is filled can be quite long.
When an ambassador position opens up, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s
procedure is to open an internal tender for all qualified ministry
employees.
If there is no suitable or available candidate for the position, as is the
case with Eritrea, the position can be opened to all Israeli civil servants
from various ministries.
Applications are then reviewed by an appointment committee, which makes a
list of recommendations to the government.
Upon government approval the candidate is sent to the host government, which
also needs to confirm the appointment.
Only then can the new ambassador start preparing for going abroad.
On arrival in the host country the ambassador has to present a letter of
credentials from the Israeli president, after which they can start working
as ambassador.
Requests for comment from the Israeli embassy in Asmara, Eritrea, were
refused.